


Diagnosis

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Injury, M/M, Pining, Rimming, Rough Sex, Spit As Lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 11:08:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: A night's work takes a wrong turn and reveals more than John means it to.





	Diagnosis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



Laszlo's nose is broken. His left eye is already swelling shut and their assailants have threatened to do much worse to him still than that. John believes them entirely; that's why he's doing what he doing and he's done what it is he's done. 

The ringleader - who, as bad luck and worse judgement would have it, is not even the man who they've been looking for - had his hired thug beat Laszlo down to the ground when John refused to do what he'd asked them to. The thug stepped down hard on the fingers of Laszlo's good hand to emphasize his point rather dramatically and John closed his mouth with an abrupt snap, mid-sentence though he was. He understood: if he continued to speak, Laszlo would pay the price for it instead of him. He couldn't bear to have that on his conscience, and so the simple fact is that he complied. He is now still in the midst of that act of compliance.

Somehow, he thinks, undressing him was almost the very worst of it. It reminded him of another time, years ago, during their more carefree student days, when Laszlo had broken his wrist in a nasty winter fall and John had, very foolishly, offered to assist him. He fumbled at the links in Laszlo's cuffs and at the studs in his collar, reminded of a much more pleasant room and much more pleasant circumstances, when he'd taken off all of Laszlo's clothes piece after piece and helped him wash himself over the basin. He remembered Laszlo's stoicism in the face of his indignity. That same look was on his face as John unfastened his bloody collar under their unfriendly orders and began to strip him to bare skin. 

Now, with Laszlo's nose dripping blood onto the floorboards of this dilapidated tenement, he's not reminded of those days at all. Not with Laszlo on his knees the way he is, John's handprint smeared in blood over one bare hip, over the small of his back where he didn't mean to scratch him but still did. He runs one hand down the full length of Laszlo's spine, from the back of his neck to the indent at his coccyx and then lower, to where his cock is penetrating him. He rubs there as he moves, at the place where Laszlo is stretched taut around him, with the toes of his shoes scuffing against the dusty wooden floor for leverage. He's inside him, fucking him, just as he was told to do.

He's not reminded of that strange week years ago when Laszlo's wrist was broken. He won't permit himself to think about how he felt himself stiffen as he helped him to wash and how when Laszlo inevitably noticed that, what he said was, _That's perfectly natural, John._ It didn't seem natural when Laszlo's situation down below the waist began to mirror his own quite precisely. It didn't seem natural when he took a breath and then offered his help with that, too, because there was clearly no way he could touch himself with a fractured wrist in addition to the obvious. Laszlo accepted the offer with a kind of calm curiosity. John recalls how he seemed to enjoy it physiologically speaking, but his reactions were otherwise detached and scientific. He's sure that's a façade, but if it is then it's one he cannot see his way past. 

He's still mostly clothed now, just as he was back then. Laszlo is naked now, just as he was back then. With every thrust of his hips, with Laszlo's every hissing, hitching breath, he tells himself he isn't thinking of the nights when he left Laszlo's room and sketched out the proportions of him in a muted shade of charcoal gray. He didn't learn art from drawing him, but he knows he improved himself that way. And afterwards, each night, he burned the sketches once he'd finished them. Laszlo was not the practised alienist that he is not back then, of course, but that's not to say he did not have opinions; he would've shared them had he seen the things John drew, and he didn't want to know.

Once Laszlo was naked, the thug shoved him down onto his knees. John pushed his trousers down over his hips. Laszlo looked up at him, bloody, bruised, and John tangled his fingers into Laszlo's hair. He ran the pad of his thumb over the curve of Laszlo's bottom lip, pushed past it, felt the blunt edge of his bottom teeth, and he could feel his cock begin to harden. He ran the tip of it against Laszlo's lips and Laszlo took him into his mouth quite calmly, though all that John could think was, _How can he be calm?_ John wasn't calm as he slid his cock into Laszlo's mouth. But that couldn't last: Laszlo's broken nose meant that he could barely breathe with his mouth full as it was of John's cock, and their captors didn't seem to relish the thought of his asphyxiation. They favored humiliation over murder. 

"Fuck him," the leader said, from his seat across the room, underneath the curtained window, and John bit back a sharp retort. He could see that the man thought this was all excellent sport, humiliating the society gents who'd been sniffing around his affairs, but at that moment John felt much more anger than he did humiliation. He knew not all of that was directed at their captors, also. After all, Laszlo had been the one who'd dragged him out of bed past midnight, demanding that he help, though he wasn't certain that this qualified as that. 

He pushed Laszlo down onto his hands and knees on the dusty wooden boards, though his hands gave out and he went down onto his forearms instead of that. Perhaps John was angry with him but he was angry the situation more so; he refused to be humiliated by the owner of yet another enterprise in prostitution. So, he told himself he chose what he did next, when he parted Laszlo's cheeks and ran his thumbs against his hole, around it, over it, making it tighten and pucker at the touch. He told himself he chose it when he leaned down low and let his tongue flicker against it, hot and wet. He hadn't been told to hurt him, after all, just to fuck him. He knew how to ease those things along.

When he pulled back again, it was to press the tip of his cock to Laszlo's hole. He pushed forward, holding himself in place against him, inching himself inside him. Laszlo didn't say a word. Neither did he. Laszlo's cock was already just as hard as John's was. 

And now, he's fucking him. He's still mostly dressed and Laszlo is mostly naked and he's reeling from the drink he'd had before he'd gone to bed, and he fucks him till he's breathless because he hopes they'll let them go if they can just get through it. When they've made him fuck him till he comes, that might be enough.

Later, Laszlo will look at him, turn that powerful lens on him and speak of all the reasons why John wanted it in spite of the circumstances in which they found themselves. John will say he did it so they wouldn't die, but he knows both sides of it are true and not just his. Then he'll pour them both a drink like that might appease them both and if they have enough of it, the brandy or the scotch that Laszlo doesn't often open, maybe something closer to the truth can come out of this broken thing between them. Maybe, though, there's really not much use in that.

He grips Laszlo's hips and he fucks him, slow and hard. He knows he's enjoying this more than he ought.

He wanted it, yes, but not like this. And perhaps by the end of the night he'll have saved their lives in doing it, but the alienist will have his diagnosis. 

He reaches down for Laszlo's cock and he strokes him to his own rhythm. He wants him to enjoy it, too.

After this, Laszlo will know. But diagnosis is the point at which treatment begins.


End file.
